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While realistically soldiers do think for themselves, they are in fact trained to think alike and follow orders automatically.
On my first day of basic training, our drill instructors told us, "There are no individuals here, there will be no individuals here, and if I find an individual, I'll kick his ass out!"
The whole point of basic training is to drill out individual behavior. Not saying this is a bad thing, because in a war people need to be interchangeable, which means you need to know what the guy next to you is thinking, what his actions will be, and how he will respond to situations. Your life depends on that.
I got out of the military because I didn't like that I had to spend most of my time in groupthink.
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"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses
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